Battle of New Year's Weekend (3 months late)

Over new year's weekend Jonny and I got together for a couple of matches. On the Saturday match it was 1000 pt IG vs. Genestealer cult (IG/tyranid:stealers only). Then on New Year’s Eve it was a proper slugfest between 2000 points of IG-Eldar v. IG-Tyranid. Instead of a narrative driven battle report I am just going to talk about some of the rules and lessons learned from 6th edition so far and the outcome of each.

The first match was mostly standard fair. Remembering the new rules is a pain in the ass because 6th edition in many ways works so different. The really important changes like overwatch, snap fire, and removing casualties from the front have been the ones that we have been focusing on. In the first game more than most others we did the "Look out sir rule." "Look out sir" is a interesting mechanic if a bit slow and a pain in the ass to implement if you are not really paying attention during the other players turn. I think it was only successful once but still to have that hope that your Officer or SGT isn't going to eat it from the errant missile or battle cannon blast is always interesting.

I am 100% convinced that flyers are only as useful as long as skyfire is still limited to a select few models. Once it becomes an option available to multiple units in multiple armies flyers are screwed. Why do I say this? Hydra's! 2 twin linked autocannons in batteries of 2 for about the same points as a vendetta. For the way that my 1000 point list is set up ignore the leman russ, ignore the basilisk, and cue up some hydras. The hydras could with luck take down one of my vendettas with in a single round eliminating my real anti tank force. Imagine space marines devastators with missile launchers that have skyfire.... goodbye flyers. Especially with some of the changes that the recent IG update did to the valkyrie/vendetta they will become significantly less dependable in my army.

Jonny and I had figured this out already but proved the point even more so in both games over new years. Overwatch with flamers can really change the charge significantly. 3 times in the last 4 games my flamers were able to stop a charge by either guardsmen and more disturbingly genestealers. I get it for the guardsmen and for other shooting elements of an army but when the things that are supposed to charge can't because of these new rule changes something has to give. A rule that may balance things out a bit could be that the assaulted unit would still get overwatch but the assaulting unit could remove casualties from the rear. Call it something like "forward momentum". This should be implemented for Tyranids at the very least because overwatch really neuters assault oriented armies.

The first game ended with a victory for the righteous Guard over the filthy xeno half breeds. It was a objective grab game with board split in half vertically but we forget it was 12" from the center instead of 12" from the table edge. For foot slogging armies that took forever before we were able to shoot at each other. I doubt we will make that mistake again.

Pictures for Game 1

Second game was 2000 points IG-Eldar and Tyranid-IG. The biggest 6th edition change here is obviously allies. We had tried allies before but only in a small way prior to this and it didn't make that big of a difference the first time at like 1250 points. But here at 2000 points it could get pretty nasty.

Duels... still haven't done them but this would have been the perfect game for it but we never got the chance to try it out. I still think it is the worst change to 6th edition as it just doesn't fit with my image of 40k universe.

A major problem with the ally system is the overpowered combinations people can come up with. When I was making my list I started to think about all of the overpowered combos I could have used especially with the guard part of the army. I resisted but there are really few limitations here. I could have taken a cheap command squad a nothing vet squad for 120ish points and spent the rest of the 1000 points on leman russes, basilisks, and vendettas. Yikes that is a lot of fire power and I would still have the 1000 points of Eldar for quick objective grabbing and infantry slaughter. Jonny too commented on some of the combinations he was working toward (I don't recall what exactly) but backed off of them because it seemed too much.

On the other hand one of the best things about 6th edition is the narrative driven battles. The ally system allows this to playout. Seeing, for example, in this game a way for me to field Eldar with my IG was awesome and allowed the Eldar to be used in a fluff driven way where they are supposed to show up at points of importance to cause a shift in future events. Now when we have those bigger battles like this one it is easier for me to imagine a group of Eldar fighting alongside space marines, imperial guard, or even orks to shift the outcome to change the future. I love that story driven aspect. I tried to kept my list fluffy with my Eldar allies with rangers, a scaled back farseer, and striking scorpions with a transport. Jonny too did a good job of keeping it with in the story arc that we have been playing with my guard fighting a Tyrnaid invasion brought on the genestealer cult. His choice of units planted the idea of a shifting in the story and having more Tyranid units than Imperial guard signaling the start of the invasion.

The battle itself was pretty damn epic. For the first 3 turns it was anybody’s game with traitor russ's blasting wholes in my command squads, traitor basilisks raining death from afar, and Tyranid monsters swooping and clawing their way forward into a hail of lasfire. Eldar rangers sniping the large beasties, snowspeeders turning russes into slag, and walls of lasfire to greet the hungry swarm. There would have been a story for the battle report for the 2000 point game but the game was called due to drunkenness (mine).

Pictures for Game2 (I don't know why there are so many blurry pictures they looked fine when I was taking them.)